The Skipper and the Skipped Part 58

That night two more hollow "chunks" shook the ground of Smyrna, at intervals an hour separated, and morning light showed that two isolated barns had been destroyed.

Mr. Luce appeared in the village with his sack, quite at his ease, and demanded of Broadway certain canned delicacies, his appet.i.te seeming to have a finer edge to correspond with his rising courage.

He even hinted that Broadway's stock was not very complete, and that some early strawberries might soften a few of the asperities of his nature.

"I ain't never had a fair show on eatin'," he complained to the apprehensive storekeeper. "It's been ten years that my wife ain't got me a fair and square meal o' vittles. She don't believe in cookin'

nothin' ahead nor gettin' up anything decent. She's a Go-upper and thinks the end of the world is li'ble to come any minit. And the way I figger it, not havin' vittles reg'lar has give me dyspepsy, and dyspepsy has made me cranky, and not safe to be squdged too fur. And that's the whole trouble. I've got a hankerin' for strorb'ries. They may make me more supple. P'raps not, but it's wuth tryin'."

He tossed the cans into his sack in a perfectly reckless manner, until Broadway was sick and hiccuping with fear. "Love o' Lordy," he pleaded, "don't act that way. It's apt to go off--go off any time.

I know the stuff better'n you do--I've dealt in it. Ain't I usin'

you square on goods?"

"Mebbe so," admitted Mr. Luce. "Fur's you know, you are. But the trouble with me is my disposition. It ain't been made supple yet.

If you've got in stock what my appet.i.te craves I may be more supple next time I come."

He dug a tender strip out of the centre of a hanging codfish, and walked out. Parading his ease of spirits and contempt for humanity in general, he stood on the platform and gnawed at the fish and gazed serenely on the broken windows.

"I done it," he mumbled, admiringly. "I showed 'em! It won't take much more showin', and then they'll let me alone, and I'll live happy ever after. Wonder is I hadn't reelized it before. Tail up, and everybody stands to one side. Tail down, and everybody is tryin' to kick you. If it wa'n't for that streak in human nature them devilish trusts that I've heard tell of couldn't live a minit." He saw men standing afar and staring at him apprehensively. "That's right, ding baste ye," he said, musingly, "look up to me and keep your distance!

It don't make no gre't diff'runce how it's done, so long as I can do it."

And after further triumphant survey of the situation, he went away.

"Hiram," said Cap'n Sproul, with decision, turning from a long survey of Mr. Luce's retreating back through a broken window of the town house, "this thing has gone jest as far as it's goin'."

"Well," declared the showman with some bitterness, "to have them that's in authority stand round here and let one bow-legged lunatic blow up this whole town piecemeal ain't in any ways satisfyin' to the voters. I hear the talk, and I'm givin' it to you straight as a friend."

"I've got my plan all made," said the first selectman. "I want you as foreman to call out the Ancient and Honer'ble Firemen's a.s.sociation and have 'em surround them woods, and we'll take him."

"We will, hey?" demanded Hiram, pus.h.i.+ng back his plug hat and squinting angrily. "What do you think that firemen's a.s.sociation is for, anyway?"

"Never knew it to do anything but eat free picnics and give social dances," retorted the Cap'n. "I didn't know but it was willin' to be useful for once in its life."

"Slur noted!" said Hiram, with acerbity. "But you can't expect us to pull you out of a hole that you've mismanaged yourself into. You needn't flare, now, Cap'n. It's been mismanaged, and that's the sentiment of the town. I ain't twittin' you because I've lost property. I'm talkin' as a friend."

"That's twice this mornin' you've pa.s.sed me that 'friend' handbill,"

raged the selectman. "Advertisin' yourself, be ye? And then leavin'

me in the lurch! This is a friendly town, that's what it is.

Constables, voters, firemen, and you yourself dump the whole burden of this onto me, and then stand back and growl at me! Well, if this thing is up to me alone and friendless and single-handed, I know what I'm goin' to do!" His tone had the grate of file against steel.

"What?" inquired his friend with interest.

"Get a gun and go out and drop that humpbacked old Injy-cracker!"

But Hiram protested fervently.

"Where would you shoot him?" he cried. "You don't know where to find him in them woods. You'd have to nail him here in the village, and besides its bein' murder right in the face and eyes of folks, you'd put a bullet into that sack o' dynamite and blow ev'ry store, meetin'-house, and school-house in Smyrna off'm the map. You give that up, or I'll pa.s.s the word and have you arrested, yourself, as a dangerous critter."

He went away, still protesting as long as he was in hearing.

Cap'n Sproul sat despondent in his chair, and gazed through the broken window at other broken windows. Ex-Constable Nute presented himself at the pane outside and said, nervously chewing tobacco: "I reckon it's the only thing that can be done now, Cap'n. It seems to be the general sentiment."

With a flicker of hope irradiating his features, Cap'n Sproul inquired for details.

"It's to write to the President and get him to send down a hunk of the United States Army. You've got to fight fire with fire."

Without particular display of pa.s.sion, with the numb stolidity of one whose inner fires have burned out, the selectman got up and threw a cuspidor through the window at his counsellor, and then seated himself to his pondering once more.

That afternoon Mrs. Aholiah Luce came walking into the village, spent, forlorn, and draggled. She went straight to the town office, and seated herself in front of the musing first selectman.

"I've come to call on for town help," she said. "I haven't got sc.r.a.p nor skred to eat, and northin' to cook it with. You've gone to work and put us in a pretty mess, Mister S'leckman. Makin' my husband an outlaw that's took to the woods, and me left on the chips!"

The Cap'n surveyed her without speaking--apparently too crushed to make any talk. In addition to other plagues, it was now plain that he had brought a pauper upon the town of Smyrna.

"So I call on," she repeated, "and I need a whole new stock of groc'ries, and something to cook 'em with."

And still the Cap'n did not speak. He sat considering her, his brows knitted.

"I'm a proud woman nat'rally," she went on, "and it's tough to have to call on 'cause the crowned heads of earth has oppressed the meek and the lowly."

Cap'n Sproul trudged across the room, and took down a big book inscribed "Revised Statutes." He found a place in the volume and began to read in an undertone, occasionally looking over his specs at her.

"It's as I thought it was," he muttered; "when one member of a family, wife or minor children, call on for town aid, whole family can be declared paupers till such time as, and so forth." He banged the big book shut. "Interestin' if true--and found to be true. Law to use as needed. So you call on, do you, marm?" he queried, raising his voice. "Well, if you're all ready to start for the poor-farm, come along."

"I ain't goin' onto no poor-farm," she squealed. "I call on, but I want supplies furnished."

"Overseer of the poor has the say as to what shall be done with paupers," announced the Cap'n. "I say poor-farm. They need a good, able-bodied pauper woman there, like you seem to be. The other wimmen paupers are bedridden."

"My husband will never let me be took to the poorhouse and kept there."

"Oh, there ain't goin' to be any trouble from that side. You're right in line to be a widder most any time now."

"Be you goin' to kill 'Liah?" she wailed.

"It will be a self-actin' proposition, marm. I ain't got any very special grudge against him, seein' that he's a poor, unfortunate critter. I'm sorry, but so it is." He went on with great appearance of candor. "You see, he don't understand the nature of that stuff he's luggin' round. It goes off itself when it gets about so warm.

It's comin' warmin' weather now--sun gettin' high--and mebbe next time he starts for the village the bust will come."

"Ain't any one goin' to warn him?"

"I can't find it's set down in my duties, marm; and from the acts of the gen'ral run of cowards in this town I don't reckon any one else will feel called on to get near enough to him to tell him. Oh no! He'll fire himself like an automatic bomb. Prob'ly to-morrow.

By the looks of the sky it's goin' to be a nice, warm day."

She backed to the door, her eyes goggling.

"I ain't got any hard feelin's at all, marm. I pity you, and here's a ten-dollar bill that I'll advance from the town. I reckon I'll wait till after you're a widder before I take you to the poorhouse."

She clutched the bill and ran out. He watched her scurry down the street with satisfaction wrinkling under his beard. "It was a kind of happy idee and it seems to be workin'," he observed. "I've allus thought I knew enough about cowards to write a book on 'em. We'll see!"

That night there were no alarms in Smyrna. Cap'n Sproul, walking to his office the next forenoon, mentally scored one on the right side of his calculations.

When he heard Mr. Luce in the village square and looked out on him, he scored two, still on the right side. Mr. Luce bore his grisly sack, but he did not carry a stick of dynamite in his hand.